Sabadell looks to offload TSB as BBVA merger falls through

Posted: 30th November 2020

Spanish bank Banco Sabadell is considering the sale of its troublesome UK unit TSB Bank, following the collapse of merger talks with BBVA.

Sabadell says it intends to launch a new strategy that will prioritise its Spanish domestic business after it ended talks with BBVA over an agreed price.

A merger between the two banks was on the cards after BBVA sold off its US banking business to PNC earlier this month.

Sabadell says it will also analyse “strategic alternatives for creating shareholder value with regard to the Group’s international assets, including TSB”.

Sabadell acquired TSB in 2015, but ran into trouble when the UK bank’s conversion to its core banking platform went badly awry, leaving customers unable to access accounts for weeks on end.

TSB has since separated its computer systems from Sabadell, creating an opportunity for a relatively clean break should the business find a buyer.

The news comes as TSB suffers its second outage in as many months, leading one angry customer to call it “the worst bank ever,” on DownDetector. According to the site, the bank’s Website crashed overnight and continued to display intermittent problems into the morning on the busiest online shopping day of the year.

This follows a similar incident at the end of October, when its mobile and Internet services failed to load, leaving some customers unable to access accounts on payday.

Source

Categories: Banking